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Discover how the best media brands and solo operators are winning at newsletter growth & monetization.
Hosted by SparkLoop's cofounder Louis Nicholls and SparkLoop's newsletter nerd, Dylan Redekop—we take you behind the scenes and share the strategies, trends, and tactics you need to know to build your email audience and revenue.
Featuring exclusive interviews with the smartest media experts and operators out there today. Including from the Hustle, Morning Brew, Workweek, The Pour Over, and more.
EP 42 - Jeremy Enns
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[00:00:00]
Dylan Redekop: Before we dive into this chat with Jeremy, I wanted to take 15 seconds to tell you about the Send Grow newsletter. Yes, we have a newsletter. If you love the content on the Send Grow podcast, you'll absolutely love the Send Grow newsletter. You'll get deep dives, actionable tips, and the best resources each week for smart newsletter operators like you.
Sign up at sparkloop. app slash newsletter link is in the show notes. Now let's get into the chat with Jeremy Enns.
Jeremy Enns: This is the approach where I like to take when I'm thinking about, okay, I've got a newsletter and I'm thinking about starting a podcast. Like what is the job that can be different for people who are, they've already getting my newsletter.
How can I do something different for them with the podcast?
Dylan Redekop: Welcome to the send and grow podcast. I'm your host, dylan Redekop. In my day job at Sparkloop, I spent all my time analyzing how the best newsletter operators and media brands in the world grow and monetize their audiences. I get a behind the scenes look at how they're growing their newsletters and driving revenue, and there is so much to learn from their success and from their mistakes. With this podcast, you get [00:01:00] that access too.
Every week I sit down with a different guest from industry experts to successful operators and we go deep on the stuff that you need to know so you can become really effective at growing and monetizing your newsletter. Today on the Send & Grow Podcast, I'm thrilled to have Jeremy Enns join us.
Jeremy is the beard and brains behind the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter and he runs Podcast Marketing Academy. An in depth course teaching experienced creators, brands, and marketers how to market your podcast
effectively. Don't worry, this isn't a podcast episode about podcasts. Jeremy's podcast experience actually offers an untapped goldmine of opportunities for newsletter operators just like us. Jeremy has some insights that could just be the secret sauce you've been missing. So whether you're wondering what podcasts have to do with you, or you're already toying with the idea of starting a podcast alongside your newsletter, This chat with Jeremy is going to flip some switches. Today, we'll explore why merging these two mediums might be the smartest move for your content strategy, how to get started with [00:02:00] your own podcast, and the unexpected benefits of pairing a podcast with your newsletter.
Jeremy is fantastic to have you here. Let's kick things off with your journey into the intersection of newsletters and podcasts. What inspired you to merge these two worlds?
Jeremy Enns: My name is Jeremy Enns, like you mentioned, and first of all, I just got to say, like, it's. It's uh, so great to be chatting on the show.
Part of my story, we starts in BC near Vancouver, uh, similar to where you are right now, actually my journey in podcasting starts back there. So I moved to Vancouver to go to audio engineering school. Uh, what are we in 2024? So more than in back in 2011, I think. And so more than 10 years ago now. And I wanted to work in the record industry and make, make records, make music and kind of did that for, went to school for that, did that for kind of a year or so after school realized that, okay, the music industry's, uh, Kind of a tough industry to make a living in these days.
And I was kind of looking for hopefully getting a job at a studio. And I realized that that doesn't really exist anymore. It's very freelance and entrepreneurial. And so it's kind of ironic that I went down the [00:03:00] entrepreneurial path in the end anyway. But I kind of got out of the music side of things and I kind of came to discover podcasting as a listener a couple years later and just went full down the rabbit hole.
I was working at a job where I could listen to music or podcasts or audiobooks or whatever at work. And I listened to a bunch of audiobooks. And then I remembered, you know, a friend of mine, he had listened to podcasts in the past. I was like, Oh, I wonder What's out there? What are these podcast things?
It's probably 2014 and I knew that I wanted to do something creative, but I didn't quite know what, and so I didn't even know any of the terminology really. What I wanted to do is build what I would now consider a location independent business that I could do online and work from anywhere. And so I think I searched like.
creative business or something like that. And at that time, there was already dozens of shows. And so Pat Flynn was one of the first ones I came across, uh, Amy Porterfield, John Lee Dumas, all these kinds of like early online marketing shows that I just went down the rabbit hole as a listener and started, you know, getting into that world and realizing like, Oh, okay, there's a way to do this.
I've got some skills that, that maybe could play into this. And it kind of took me six months to come to the realization that like, Oh, I have all these audio skills. I'm a super [00:04:00] podcast listener. Like, maybe I could do something with this and, uh, actually get started out, uh, as an editor on Upwork and kind of editing episodes for, you know, 30 bucks an episode or whatever.
And that over the next few years, it actually gained traction really fast. But, uh, over the next few years built up a podcast agency and that kind of opened the door to this whole world of podcasting that I've now kind of shifted over into the marketing side in the past few years. But that's been the kind of, uh, Coles notes version of my, my history in podcasting.
That's
Dylan Redekop: awesome. And just for those wondering, I live right near Vancouver, BC. So that's the, uh, the connection there. So, uh, me and Jeremy have both experienced the beautiful BC chilly and rainy winters that I'm currently experiencing out here where you're in Spain right now. If you're not, if I'm not mistaken, right.
Yeah. Not, uh,
Jeremy Enns: not so cold and rainy right now. It's been, uh, I mean, it's been about, okay, we're not going to get into the Celsius and Fahrenheit. It's been nice here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dylan Redekop: Fair enough. Fair enough. Um, okay. So let me just back up for a second. The reason I wanted to have you on the podcast here, Jeremy, uh, for those listening to is because, you know, we are, we're obviously publishing a send to grow podcast here.[00:05:00]
We are a business that focuses on newsletters. So we are kind of, you know, playing in both these fields. We've done over 40 or sorry, by the time this is published, we'll have done over 40 episodes of the podcast and we've gone through, you know, hours upon hours of growth strategies for newsletters, right?
Because we talked to newsletter operators, podcasts. As a form of growth has almost never come up. There's a few exceptions. Uh, Jason Woodruff from the pour over. They have a podcast. He spoke about that. That was in episode 11. Uh, young Sue Chung from first class founders who you've been on his podcast. He writes the first class founders podcast and publishes, or sorry, he writes a newsletter and publishes the podcast.
That was back in episode 36, but really like. As a whole, there has not been very much talk, at least with the people we've had on who, who had shown amazing growth and really done an exceptional job of growing their newsletters and monetizing them. You know, there's not been the podcast strategy, despite how popular podcasts are, how, how much they've grown.
you know, [00:06:00] permeated our culture. So this is a long, really long winded way of asking you, should every newsletter start or at least consider starting a podcast?
Jeremy Enns: Yeah. So I, I think, I mean, I think the answer to that question is probably no, but I think that there are, I mean, it's certainly no, not every newsletter operator should start a podcast and not.
Every podcast. Actually, you know what? If I was to go one way or the other, I would say every podcaster should have a newsletter. That's my opinion, but not every newsletter operator should have a podcast. And so a little bit, maybe more background info here is that, you know, I'm in the podcast industry, but I'm naturally a writer.
And so I have written a newsletter on podcasting called Scrappy Podcasting for about, I think we're coming up on, maybe did we just pass three years or just past two years? I think we just passed two years a few months ago. I don't know. And before that, I had a previous year and a half writing another newsletter that's kind of now on hiatus.
That one was called Creative Wayfinding. And so between these two, I published, you know, many hundreds of newsletter issues and Scrappy Podcasting is currently daily. So I've written a lot and gone all in on email as my kind of main creative [00:07:00] platform. Now, at the same time, I've also hosted several podcasts of my own in the past, done a lot of work for clients, and I've recently launched a new show of my own.
And one of the things that's been interesting is getting back into podcasting. I think it's been three, two or three years since my last show. I, you know, I sometimes feel a little weird talking to my podcasting clients and things like that because I'm so much more email oriented. And I kind of put pressure on people.
I'm like, you should also have a newsletter. Like I get the value of podcasting. I like sell it to people too. Like, you know, there is value in podcasting, But also like if it comes to, especially if you're a business owner and you're trying to make sales, podcasting is great for getting people. It's like getting them to the 99 yard line and it's like to get them over the edge.
It's really hard to get people to take action from podcasting. So this is one of the downsides where email is so much better at that, where you can just click a link. It arrives in your inbox and you're there's even this kind of like platform psychology where people buy stuff from email. Every single day and they like expect that they might buy something from email, whereas like that's not really what you're in the mindset of when you're listening to a podcast.
You're probably not. [00:08:00] You're not don't expect to like click through to a sales page and maybe buy something. And so I think that having both of those things is really complimentary. So on the one side, I think that's the case for why podcasters should be on email on the flip side. And I think for this audience, who is probably more, they're coming from my side of things where it's like you've been writing newsletters for a long time and I probably bought in on this.
Yeah. What's been really interesting is building up this email audience. And so currently, like I have around a twelve and a half thousand person email list at this point. That's, you know, I get a decent amount of engagement from that. But since launching the show, I've had so many more inbound emails from people, which has been so fascinating to me.
And it seems like, so we're two weeks into the show launch. And so we've released, I think like six episodes or something like that, including the teaser. And it's been kind of crazy where I was like, wow, this is. So much more engagement than I typically get and the really funny thing is that podcasters consistently complain about how hard it is to get engagement and I've been kind of thinking about this and I'm like, what, what is [00:09:00] going on here?
Why is this? And the kind of current conclusion that I've come to here is that. You hear, I've heard a lot of people talk about this where it's like kind of like raising the resolution of how you're showing up online. And so writing is almost to some extent, the lowest form of that. And like really short form writing or like curated newsletters are probably even less personality.
People are getting a very limited view of who you are. And as you start to add in longer form writing, and then you get into audio podcasting, and then maybe you get into video podcasting, which we're doing as well. People really get a fuller sense of who you are. And I think that there's a lot more that they can connect with.
And then in my situation, I think, because I've already, I've always had this email relationship with people. People know how to get in touch with me. They get my daily emails in their inbox. And so now it's actually really easy for them to, when they go listen to a new podcast episode, They get the next day's email, they reply to that and they're like, Oh, I really loved yesterday's podcast episode.
Right. And so to me, this is my initial kind of thoughts here where like, I have got great feedback on my newsletters, all my newsletters for years now, but the [00:10:00] engagement in the past two weeks, maybe there's something like new show launching stuff like that. But I also think like people are getting a fuller version of me than they have before.
And it's less Polish to some extent because it's a conversational show with a friend of mine where we, we, we structure it quite a bit, but it is a back and forth. It's not scripted. And I think people get to hear more of the stuff that in writing to writings benefit, it's concise and condensed, but I think you also don't get some of the nuance that comes out in podcasting that really allows people to connect with you as more of a human.
And so that's, I think my big. Current view of like why a newsletter writer might want to look into podcasting or video podcasting of some form. Yeah, that's really
Dylan Redekop: interesting that you a that you've gleaned that insight from just the amount of, you know, the past couple of weeks, the feedback you've had, and it makes me think like, you know, when we look at celebrities, Not to bring celebrities into this conversation, but just the way they're revered, right?
Because we see them, we see them on TV, we see them in movies, whereas radio hosts or podcast hosts, we hear them. [00:11:00] And that also brings a, um, you know, seeing as maybe if, if seeing is kind of the number one way you're going to visually connect and, and recognize somebody, then you can hear them as well. Um, that's, that's a, maybe a level below.
And then writing is almost that other level below. Like there's not sure there's tons of, you know, famous writers, but we don't really, um, Let's see. How am I trying to say this? We don't really connect with them the same way that we do visually or audibly with somebody. So I think it's, it makes sense to me that you are getting that much more engagement with people like, Hey, I hear Jeremy now.
I kind of like, I kind of feel like I know him a little bit more. He's in my ears. So it's really interesting that that has Sean through with in the last few weeks since you've really launched and really marketed the podcast. So that to me is a good case. Why, you know, perhaps starting a podcast could be at the very least a good experiment for a newsletter operator to try.
Right? Yeah. So let's say, let's say I'm convinced as a newsletter operator, I haven't started a podcast. I thought about it, but I just spoke with you. I just heard what you said. And now I'm like, Hey, you [00:12:00] know what? I'm going to give this podcast thing a try. I'm going to, I'm going to pair it with my newsletter.
I only have a small budget. Like maybe enough to pay for a monthly hosting platform, not enough to, you know, pay for a professional editor, but what would, what would you say is the best way to proceed? And like, what would, what would be the first thing I should do to kind of start this accompanying podcast?
Jeremy Enns: Yeah. So I don't know if, if you were the people listening to this are familiar with this idea of jobs to be done. This is kind of marketing framework that is essentially the short version of it. It was initially kind of, Yeah. Came out of some like Harvard researchers research around marketing and why people buy things.
And what they found was that people hire products to do a job for them, much like they would hire a person to do a job for them. And so the classic case study is that everybody knows it's basically McDonald's, but I don't know if they, uh, actually released this information in the report. And so McDonald's hired these researchers to, uh, help them sell more milkshakes.
And what they found was that milkshakes. sold a lot in the morning. And this is like, this kind of confounds the research, like why are [00:13:00] people buying milkshakes in the morning? And what they realized is that the job that people were hiring milkshakes to do was actually to have a like hands free snack or breakfast that they could have in the car that was filling, that would leave them full till lunch.
And so actually you think about milkshakes and you're like, Oh, you're competing to sell milkshakes with ice cream cones and like other sweets and Snickers bars when really what The competition here, the thing people are hiring to do is it's taking the place of a banana or a granola bar or things like that.
And so this for McDonald's unlock this idea of like, oh, we can now market our milkshakes better as like breakfast items essentially because we know people are already doing that and we're not messaging to that. And so that's where this kind of research came from is that certain like offers do certain jobs for people.
And so I think about this in terms of content. All the time, and so essentially this, I think about this in terms of my newsletter in terms of my podcast, and this is where it gets really interesting, and I think when you start thinking about if if building a media company is what your goal is, this is a really important thing to understand is that I'll Sometimes people will take the approach where it's like, [00:14:00] okay, I offer a newsletter and a podcast and you know, my twitter feed and they're all the same content.
And this is like very classic, like content repurposing, you know, build it once and just like ship it everywhere and that to some extent can work. But I think if you start to look at how a media company actually operates, they have a suite of offerings that do different things. And so there's all, they're all thematically aligned.
And so if you come to this network, probably you're into, you know, their, their target audience is into a range of things. And you might want to sample a bunch of those things and have a different kind of media offerings that appeal to different people, but also allow you to get more out of each person.
And so if you look at like a podcast network, Let's say like barstool sports or something. Okay, you know that this is, they have a certain audience avatar who is interested in sports. It's not like they're just going to recreate the same show about sports, you know, five different times. They're going to offer different things that might appeal to like, maybe we get one listener in the door and they're not going to listen to five of our shows.
And so this is the approach where I like to take when I'm thinking about, okay, I've got a newsletter and I'm thinking about starting a podcast, like, what is the job [00:15:00] that can be different for people who are, they've already getting my newsletter? How can I do something different for them with the podcast?
And so for me, what this looks like a lot of time is like, My writing is very, like, frameworks and, like, structured kind of oriented. I want to talk about, like, big ideas in my writing. And the podcast is a very different take. Where, like, what I want to do with the podcast is talk about, like, how do these ideas, like, collide with reality.
And so, like, one of the things that we're doing with this new show is doing, we're calling them podcast roasts. And so it's like actually taking somebody who left a review for our show and we pull up their their show listing in apple podcast and we break down like what's going on with their title, their cover art, their episode titling, their descriptions, all these kind of marketing elements.
And what's really interesting is like we can cite some of the frameworks and the idea of the marketing ideas behind these things. But there's a practical example that we can kind of talk through in a real like rubber meets the road way. And so There is a very compelling reason here where somebody might want to get both of us in the podcast and also read the newsletter because the newsletter informs them of the concepts and then the podcast shows them in [00:16:00] action.
And I think that this is one of the big benefits of podcasting is you can kind of write down this, these core beliefs about your topic, whatever they are, but then you can get into conversations that are more expansive and more nuanced and they go in interesting directions that you're probably never going to get into with writing.
Like it would almost be bad writing for you to follow every like rabbit hole around, Whereas with a podcast, that can be really interesting. And so that's where, where I typically start is like, what am I already doing in the newsletter? How can I offer something different that, you know, every one of my newsletter writers, like there's a solid reason.
They're not all going to go listen to the podcast, but there's a compelling reason why this is actually expanding the scope of what they can get from me. I really like that.
Dylan Redekop: I never really thought about it that way. Because I think the common direction people go with the newsletters. Oh, I'll just reread audio version of my newsletter, which might be fine.
It has worked for a lot of people. Having the different, not more approach is also, is also a pretty strong approach as, as you've just alluded to. So with the type of newsletter determined, then the type of podcast
Jeremy Enns: that you'd produce. [00:17:00] Potentially. I think it starts. So one of the things this depends a little bit on on where you're at with your brand to some extent.
And so I really like to think about, like, what is the big idea of my brand? And ideally, this this takes a long time for everybody to get to. And, you know, I feel like everybody really. Yeah. Nobody, I think, almost ever actually distills it down to like, this is actually what the core idea behind my brand. I think a few people get close, but I think everybody is a constantly moving target and you can never quite articulate what it is, but you have some kind of feeling that you're chasing that you want to be known for.
And so usually I will think about like, you know, how do I build media properties that fit within that, that brand? And so again, it's like, what is my, my newsletter already doing? And maybe I want to position something counter to that. So if I have a actionable newsletter, maybe I want to make something that's more.
Let's let's say philosophical like going too far in that direction, maybe, but it's more like less kind of here's like the five action steps that you need to do to do this. I think that's fine. And I think newsletters are a better medium for highly actionable stuff than a podcast [00:18:00] typically, but if you have a different type of newsletter, then I might be looking at like, okay, what other job can I do here with the podcast?
So I think I would start at like, and this is something like as a, an educator, you realize how many tiny little pieces and you think about like learning yourself. And I always find that I like knowing the framework and the strategy, but it never really lands with me until I see it in action and see an example of somebody who's done it.
And so. Usually it's then like, Oh, now I know the strategy, but you don't quite know how to apply it yet, even if the writer's done a pretty good job. But then when you hear somebody else's story who has something very similar that you can relate to and you're like, Oh, now I see how you can actually put that into action.
And so that's a lot of times like maybe the podcast is more the actionable side of the newsletter is the examples or vice versa. But a lot of times I'm trying to look at, like, if I'm trying to get my readers a some kind of result and my brand gives them some kind of promise, there's probably multiple Components to that and rather than trying to do everything in one spot, which usually makes [00:19:00] it feel more muddled and kind of just more of a mess and hard to navigate.
I'm going to actually try and break that out into separate things that do each one of those things really, really well. So that's how I would kind of start to think about that question of like, where does the podcast live alongside, you know, what my newsletter is and how it might, the newsletter inspire something else.
Okay.
Dylan Redekop: Okay. That, that makes a lot of sense. You know, one of the reasons why I mentioned to you before we start recording that I'm excited to have you on the show is also a bit of a selfish reason because, you know, we're trying to grow our Send and Grow podcast and also sort of indirectly through that grow our Send and Grow newsletter.
So let's get into marketing a podcast a little bit as a newsletter operator. I think the the low hanging fruit is to You know share the podcast in your newsletter, but what else should people who have um, you know followed now again our advice Let's say we're this person who is decided to starting a podcast.
They found, you know that complementary piece and they want to start Promoting it alongside their newsletter. What else should
Jeremy Enns: they be doing? Yeah, I mean, I think that [00:20:00]
Dylan Redekop: we'll be right back to this conversation after a quick word from our sponsor.
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Dylan Redekop: And now back to the episode, what else should people who have followed now again, our advice, let's say we're this person who is decided to starting a podcast.
They found, you know, that [00:21:00] complimentary piece and they want to start promoting it alongside their newsletter. What else should they be doing?
Jeremy Enns: Yeah. I mean, I think that, People who already have a newsletter audience. That is the biggest opportunity for growth right away because you already know these people are all interested in your topic.
They certainly won't all be podcast listeners. And so you're, you're kind of competing with that. But I think that that audience, you've already got this buy in that, you know, they like you and they like your content and they are interested in your topic. And so for me, like a lot of my approach with this new show is I'm kind of like, okay, I've got these 12 and a half thousand people that And right now we're getting around, you know, 400 downloads an episode or something like that.
So like, okay, there's a lot of room to optimize within this existing audience here. And so I'm not overly concerned with actually promoting the show super publicly. Like I am doing that to some extent, but I also know The people who are most likely to listen are already on my list. And so I'm trying to like chip away and find the right angle.
And so every episode, I want to try and like message it in a way, craft a newsletter around it. That's like, [00:22:00] okay, how can I speak to the things I already know these people care about and make a really compelling on ramp, a reason for them to go listen to the episode. And so for me, it's actually been a kind of fun writing challenge as a writer to be able to, and this is, you know, one of the things that I see so many on the podcasting side of this, people who are podcasters first and newsletter writers second.
Are not very savvy usually when it comes to writing good podcast promotional emails and that's something that for me has been fun to be like, okay, how can I like get creative with my writing and I know where I'm trying to lead people as to the podcast. So how can I like tell a story around this or have some fun with it in a way that's not just like.
Okay, another new episode drop today on this episode, we talk about this, this and this. Yeah, you go listen now. I actually want to approach it like a newsletter where for most of my writing, there's usually like a narrative or a story that leads to a lesson. And so how can I figure out how to start that story and like create a curiosity gap that is only resolved in the podcast episode.
And so that to me is like where I personally think as an email writer, if you've already got the list, even if [00:23:00] that's like a thousand people, Those are probably the thousand people who are like the ripest on your, your, your ecosystem to go listen to the podcast. And the other part of this is that it's way, there's way less friction to getting an email subscriber than there is to getting a podcast listener.
And so for me, most of my public promotion is actually trying to get people onto the email list. And from there, I have like, and I actually don't have this set up yet. I have it through some channels. I have it set up for this new show, but not everywhere yet, but have automations in the welcome sequence.
And so. You can do some segmentation. You can say, okay, which, which one of these, you know, describes you best and they click option a, and then they get a follow up curated playlist. That's like, Hey, so you mentioned that you were into this, you know, three episodes that I think you'd really like from my podcast and they speak to this thing exactly.
And so that's, you know, we don't have enough episodes to kind of pull these playlists together yet, but over time, that's something that you can then have this automated podcast discovery system that you've kind of built on your backend so that every new person that comes into the list. They at least become aware the podcast exists, get some like highly curated [00:24:00] episodes that are likely a good fit for them.
And then over time, they're going to kind of continually get that, you know, drip of promotion each time you release an episode.
Dylan Redekop: And I'm glad you brought that up. That reminds me of when I had, we had Yong Soo Chung on the podcast about a month ago. We kind of joked around that, you know, you've got these welcome sequences for newsletters, so you can really warm up somebody and get them excited for the content.
You can't really do that. I mean, you kind of can do that with a podcast, but there's nothing that's going directly into their inbox. So. Obviously having, you know, the email as a leveraging that it's kind of your podcast. Welcome sequence almost would be the ideal way to do it. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
And there's
Jeremy Enns: another piece here that I think is interesting, like bringing up welcome sequences. We all know the point of the welcome sequences to Nurture our audience, right? And to get them to kind of like buy into our worldview, our value that we provide, get them a quick win. And there's actually this, uh, idea.
It comes from Google's research. Uh, it's called the seven 11, four rule. And so they, what they found in some of their research is that before somebody is ready to even consider making a buying decision, they need to [00:25:00] spend seven hours. I think they say like researching the content. A lot of people have kind of taken this to say seven hours with a certain creator before they're going to buy from you over 11 different touch points.
And then in four different locations. And so this is what the overarching research said. And so to me, I actually did this. So of course. As a marketer and somebody in both newsletter and podcasting, I was curious when I launched the show and I was like, okay, if I add up all the time because I have in my notion database, the average reading time of each newsletter, I was like, okay, so if somebody read through all like 100 issues, like how much time have they actually spent with me here?
And because each issue is like, you know, two minutes or so, two to three minutes, maybe four minutes on some of them. It's like a few 100 minutes. So maybe it's like yeah. A few four hours or something like that. And for a while I was releasing weekly. And so that was like two years almost of content. And they spent basically four hours with me.
Now, you know, somebody listens to three or four or five episodes. They've equaled that amount of time with me. They could binge through that in a week. That they would have got previously over a week. Multiple years or, you know, at least [00:26:00] several months and that to me was this other huge unlock where it's like, okay, if we're talking about nurturing people and getting them time with us, like podcasting is just so much better at that and the other side of this too is like, you know, of course, again, looking at the data were on YouTube as well.
And just looking like people tend to spend so far from my data three times as long with a podcast as they do with the same YouTube video. And so that kind of further solidifies this idea of like, Oh, podcasting here has this really strong role in audience nurturing and the other platforms can be useful in ways.
But I think that it's kind of unmatched in time how to get like FaceTime or ear time with a listener with you spending time with them or them spending time with you. It's hard to match that anywhere else.
Dylan Redekop: Wow. That's, that's a very important insight, I think. And I never really thought about it that way that people are reading in a newsletter and it take, it'll just take, yeah, that much longer to it was going to sit and read a 20 minute newsletter every day.
Right. Yeah. But I mean, 20 minutes on a podcast, that's like a short podcast in a lot of, in a lot of scenarios. Right. And so that adds [00:27:00] up so fast. That's, that's really interesting. Um, I wanted to go back to, you mentioned about social media and I found it, it's kind of ironic because, you know, I discovered Your new podcast via social media, despite being a subscriber to your newsletter.
I will admit I don't open every single edition. So I didn't see the announcement launch in there. So I did discover it via social media. And so you've just, you mentioned you alluded to earlier your new podcast with Justin Jackson. The founder of Transistor. The podcast is called Podcast Marketing Trends Explained.
And on a recent episode, you guys dove into the role of social media and podcast growth. And so just me learning about that, your new podcast is a great example. But how important is social media for podcast growth?
Jeremy Enns: Yeah. So this is, this is the crux of this episode that, that we, we talked about this in, in quite a bit of depth here.
And one of the things like, you know, I've, I've been in podcasting now eight, uh, maybe even coming up on nine years or something like that. And the number one thing that I hear whenever I ask people like, what are you doing to grow your show? They'll say like, well, I submitted it to all the [00:28:00] directories and I post about every episode on social media.
And this, this show is actually an extension of a kind of industry wide research project that I did last year. And I'm kind of currently doing again, looking at how people. Market their shows in podcasting and what's working, what's not, what are the high growth shows doing different from the shows that are not growing that fast?
And one of the interesting points was like, there was only one thing. There was actually one person out of the like 520 respondents. Only one person said they weren't using social media as a marketing channel. So like, it's a universal thing. Everything else, like there was plenty of people using different marketing channels, but there was nothing that came anywhere close to So like social media is this ubiquitous thing.
But also the other fascinating data point was that it was both the thing that people said was the most effective and it had not quite an equal amount, but it was also the highest ranked thing that people said was the least effective for growth. And so I was kind of like, this is so fascinating that some people are saying social media is the best thing for podcast growth.
Other people are saying, like, this is the biggest waste of time. And so I think this is the experience of a lot of people who are podcasting on social media is like, [00:29:00] we opened up this episode with the story of Justin with one of his other shows. He's got 40, 000 followers on Twitter. And so he created this episode that he was really proud of with the guys from the acquired podcast, which is a really big podcast, very aligned with Justin's audience of kind of like bootstrappers and entrepreneurs and people in SAS.
And he posted link to the show three different times. And each one, he said, got like three clicks. And it's just like, Man, 40, 000 followers and like the show is aligned with the audience. He's well known, liked and respected. People kind of know of this acquired show. Like what, what gives here? And what we kind of like break down in the episode here is like, when you start looking at your own and I would encourage everybody listening to this, like think about how you interact with podcasts and When I think about my experience, and I am probably not indicative of everybody, but I imagine there's plenty of people like me.
I don't know that I've ever clicked through on a link from social media and then listen to the show right there. I might click through to the website. I might look at the show listing, but I rarely, like it doesn't register a download ever. [00:30:00] Usually, usually what happens is I see the show and I'm like, Oh, that sounds kind of interesting.
And if it's Fascinating. If it's really, really fascinating and compelling to me, I'll take out my phone, which is sitting right beside me. So maybe that social media post gets a click. Maybe it doesn't, but I'll like, see the show and I'm like, Oh, I'm going to add it to my, my queue here. And we actually talked through the story.
I kind of shared how one of the recent shows that I kind of started listening to is how I write by David Perel. Okay. And I've been on David Perel's list for many years on his email list. I followed him on Twitter for many years. I know him. I like him. I like all his content. I saw that how I write came out.
Many months ago, and I think I saw about on Twitter on his email list, I never listened. I was just like, I don't know. I'm not really looking for any new podcast right now. And it wasn't until I heard many people in my sphere who were listening to it and citing it as like, Oh, it's a good show. He's released, you know, 30 40 episodes at this point.
Finally, a few weeks ago, I was like, Oh, okay. I've actually got some space. I finished up a previous show. I was binging through like, what's next? And I was like, Oh, actually I've been hearing about that, uh, how I write show. Like maybe I should try that. And then now I've been through like 20 episodes in [00:31:00] the past few weeks.
And so this, I think is actually much more how social media works. Works when it comes to podcasting is you might discover a show through there, but it might take you six months or nine months before it ever registers a download. But, you know, I've seen clips from his show. I've seen him talk about it.
It's been top of mind while I've kind of been waiting for space to clear up in my feed and like, then it's that top of mind. It's not getting clicks. I'm not commenting on his post. I'm not liking them. I'm not clicking his links, but it is a reminder every time of like, oh, yeah, that thing exists. Like maybe at some point I'm going to remember
Dylan Redekop: that I should check it out.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's, that's a good point. That's the power of consistency, right? And I think, you know, advertising works the same way. You see an ad, you ignore it, you see it again, maybe you're like, Oh yeah, I remember that. And you see it the third time and then you're like a little bit more curious and start considering it.
But it takes repetition over and over and over to see it remaining top of mind. So, I mean, and David Peral's, quite good at the online marketing and promotion and social media. So it makes sense that, you know, you kept seeing it and eventually got, got through to you and now you are a subscriber. But [00:32:00] I, I suspect there's probably a lot of these lagging metrics with podcasts.
I'm not sure if that's the right way to say it, but like you said, you saw the tweet initially and it took you months before you actually became a listener and this is basically impossible to really track that So what I think would be great is we've talked a lot about Obviously, podcasts and newsletters.
And I've asked you some questions about newsletters and podcasts. But what do you think? What do you think? I didn't ask you that I should have. What is something important that you think or, or even maybe just a reminder or concept or anything you think that could be a valuable takeaway for our readers or our listeners?
I should say,
Jeremy Enns: I think that the one thing when we think about like marketing podcasts, this is true to some extent for newsletters, but it's even more true for podcasts is I think that podcasts are very. Like show concept or show premise dependent. And so so much of your marketing comes down to the angle that you take the unique concept that you develop around your show.
And one of the interesting things I think newsletters kind of benefit [00:33:00] from this as well. And so if we use an example of somebody who I know was recently on the show. Our mutual friend Chanel from growth in reverse. Yeah. She has a fantastic newsletter premise where you read her one sentence description of like breaking down.
Uh, you know, she does 40 hours of research to break down how newsletter subscribers got to 50, 000 subscribers and she shares it for you in each issue. It's like you hear that. And if you're a newsletter person, you're like, Wow, this sounds so valuable, and I get what I get the experience before I ever read an issue.
And the same thing applies to podcasting. And so you want to be able to come up with the premise where just that one sentence description almost puts a visual in people's minds where they're like, Oh, I don't need to trust that the host is a good interviewer or that the guests are going to be good. I don't have to like put too much faith in this show.
It's like, I get that this is going to be valuable, even if I don't know anything else about it. And so this is something and so like this, I don't know that my show is the best example, but we're essentially taking a data first approach to podcast marketing. And so we're kind of looking at like, okay, this is a show.
There's maybe a handful of other shows about podcast marketing, but like, unlike other shows, we are looking at like what the [00:34:00] data says about podcast marketing and distilling it for you so that you can make smarter decisions about how you market your show. And so that's a kind of unique hook that It relies less on like an interview show interviewing, you know, successful podcasters, but how they marketed their show, that's asking the audience to put a lot of faith in you as an, a host to be able to source the right guests to ask the right questions.
And I think something that's worth considering is that like, I don't. This sounds like almost an offensive thing to say, but I think the average podcast is not really that good. And I think if you think about that, like there are many millions of shows, and I think anybody listening to this would imagine if I was to randomly pick a show, just out of all those millions of show, just get a randomly generated show sent to me.
What are the odds that it's actually that good? I think it's like the top, you know, 10 or 5 percent of shows, which is still, you know, Tens of thousands of shows like those are the good shows, but I think that the average show like people have been around and you get all these like podcasting memes where it's like, you know, everybody in their, their dog is a podcast now.
And so I think the average podcast consumer is a little bit wary of starting a show because it's like, Oh, it's just going to be like [00:35:00] two, two dudes like talking about, you know, whatever they, the pizza that they ate last week or whatever it is, there are so many shows like that that are out there. That I think we want to remove any shadow of a doubt from people's minds that the show is going to be worth their time.
And so I think a really strong concept that is clearly defined can really do that. And I think that newsletter people are in a great place to do this because I think that many of the best newsletters have a strong premise. And so a lot of folks are already thinking about it through that lens. And you want to take that and apply it to podcasting because I think it matters even more in that world.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah, absolutely. When you when you're just speaking about that, it made me think and it's a really simple question. If you're a newsletter operator who's starting a podcast, would you name your podcast the same name as your newsletter?
Jeremy Enns: I think, yeah, I think there's a, I mean, the answer is, as always, is it depends.
But I think there is a case to do that. And so, you know, I mentioned before that a lot of times I think about the job that the newsletter is doing, that it might be different from the podcast. And you mentioned that a lot of people would, you know, tend to recreate their newsletter in podcast form. I'm actually going to do that.
And so I, I know I [00:36:00] actually am planning. I have one podcast out now. This is going to be kind of short run series. I am going to turn my newsletter into a podcast as well. And for a lot of the same reasons, actually, that we talked about before, whereas I know I have a lot of subscribers and you, you mentioned that like, okay, you subscribe to the newsletter.
You don't read every issue. I think that the podcast is much more bingeable. And so if I can convert all this content into it, I'm going to name that podcast, the scrappy podcasting podcast or scrappy podcasting. And so there is going to be this, this kind of like connection. So people know that this is the same thing, but I'm also looking at, you know, different podcasts in that do different jobs as well.
So I think in that sense, I would think about it in terms of like, are people getting the same experience here? And then I might also look at David Prell is actually a good example. So he's got right of passage. He doesn't call the podcast the right of passage podcast. He could have done that, but the show has a specific premise.
It's called how I write and it's interviewing writers about their writing process. And that's not a hugely original concept necessarily, but it is original in that he's focused it on this kind of [00:37:00] like tech Twitter writing crowd, which is unique. And to me, that's the real hook for it. It's like, Oh, all these people who I admire, who I read their newsletters and I see them around Twitter.
Those are the people I actually want to know about their writing process. I don't really care so much about authors who are writing fiction or anything like that, where a lot of other kind of writing process shows focus. Really I want to hear about how, you know, Paul Graham writes or Lenny Raczewski or I'm listening to the Paki McCormick episode right now.
It's like, these are the people that I'm like, yeah, I want to hear about their process. And so he has a different premise for that show and that's a different name kind of from the, the larger kind of education platform of, um, you know, writing. Right of passage.
Dylan Redekop: Right of passage. Right. Yeah. And I think it makes sense to if you are, if you're literally doing an audio version of your newsletter, like I mentioned, Jason from the pour over, they do, and it's a really easy lift for them, which is one of the reasons they do it.
Literally, they, they send the script of their newsletter over to somebody to read it and edit it. Yeah. And so there's not a lot of extra effort. And it's also the exact, you know, an audio version of their newsletter. [00:38:00] So it makes a lot of sense to name that podcast, you know, the same name. Yeah. Whereas if you are coming at it from a different angle, or you're maybe diving deeper into a topic, or maybe you're going from an entertainment angle, as opposed to an educational or informative angle, then you definitely want to rebrand.
It might not be the right word, but At least rename it, if not come at it from a different branding perspective too, that still works with your, your newsletter as well. Yeah. Any to add on that? Or, uh.
Jeremy Enns: Yeah, I guess I would just add that I think it, it comes down to like the, what's the promise of the podcast versus the newsletter.
And if the promises, if people get the same experience, maybe the name makes sense to keep the same thing. If it's offering a kind of wrinkle on what you do in the newsletter, then I think it makes sense to distinguish that.
Dylan Redekop: Very good point. Okay, so we've been chatting for over half an hour. I want to uh, be wary of your time and I really appreciate you coming on talking about all of this.
This has been, this has been a ton of great information, but let us know what's on the horizon for you and you know, the new podcast. And, uh, and podcast marketing Academy as well in 2024. Yeah.
Jeremy Enns: So, uh, for [00:39:00] me, it feels like after, I don't know, four years of kind of building out the infrastructure, it feels like the product is in a really solid place.
There's some kind of upgrades that I want to do to some of the past curriculum, things like that. But I feel really excited that it feels like a content and marketing kind of year of really stepping into more content. I've already hinted like, okay, we've got one podcast, we've got the daily newsletter, I've talked about another podcast and I even have one more podcast idea that I'm thinking about putting out there.
And so, uh, It feels like that's what I'm really excited about right now is actually starting to amplify kind of what I've been building, not super behind the scenes, but it feels like this is the year like the pieces are in place. I've got clarity on my brand messaging and all that kind of stuff, and it's time to really push that out there.
So that's the big thing for me. The Scrappy podcast newsletter, like I mentioned, is kind of my main thing right now. Podcast Marketing Trends explained is the, the current podcast that I'm doing with Justin Jackson. And, uh, so those are the, the two main ways to kind of engage with me, uh, at this point. And you've got the
Dylan Redekop: Podcast Marketing Academy at podcastmarketingacademy.com.
If you are serious about growing and marketing your podcast, you can check that [00:40:00] out. We'll include all that in the show notes, of course. And online. How can we find you online, uh, on social media?
Jeremy Enns: Yeah, so the, the best place is actually to go to podcastmarketingacademy.com/sparkloop and, uh, I'm just gonna put the together a page with all the links to LinkedIn, Twitter. I've also got a free podcast marketing assessment. So it's like a two minute quiz that you can go through, answer a bunch of questions, and it'll tell you kind of where you should probably focus some of your time and attention. Uh, so you can find that there as well, along with everything else that we mentioned here.
Dylan Redekop: Beautiful. Awesome. We will include that link as well in the show. Jeremy. It's been amazing. Great to catch up with you again. Uh, wishing you all the best in 2024. And, um, take care, man. Thanks for coming on. Yeah. Thanks so much
Jeremy Enns: for having me, Dom. This is fun. Thanks, Jeremy.
Dylan Redekop: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Send Grow podcast. If you like what you heard, here are three quick ways that you can show your support. Number one, leave us a five star rating and review in the podcast app of your choice. Number two, email or DM me with some feedback with your questions or with suggestions for future episodes. And finally, number three, share your favorite [00:41:00] quote from the episode on social media and tag both me and our guest. All of the links for that are available in the show notes. And whatever option you choose, I am really grateful for your support. Thanks, and see you next week.